By akademiotoelektronik, 31/10/2022

Future of work: what differentiates a human from a machine?

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“We are links”

Can human beings define itself by its DNA?

Mohamed Benahmed (endocrinologist, research director at Inserm, entrepreneur, specialist in epigenetics and predictive medicine): this is what we have long believed!Until the 2000s, we thought that everything was written, predetermined inside us in our genetic code.But when we finally opened the great book of the genome, of life, we realized that it was absolutely not the case: what we are, individually, is not contained in our genetic code, everythingis not written, it is the outside world that makes us evolve through our lifestyles.The outside world makes us 90%, genetics at only 10%.

So what makes man?

Our environment will completely format our genome and therefore format what we are, physically and psychically.When I say environment, it is the air that we breathe, what we eat, but also our interactions, stress ... There is also a very important thing, it is that this impact of the environment takes place veryearly in our life.During pregnancy, of course, then during the first two years of life.And we also realize that this formatting is transgenerational, at least on two or three generations: what we are depends at least a little on what our grandparents had eaten, for example.There is therefore a responsibility beyond ourselves and our person.

You also say that, beyond his own body, man is dependent on other types of life he houses ... that is to say?

One might wonder "how far we are still humans" because we shelter in our intestines, our skin, our mouth, everywhere, billions of bacteria, viruses and other types of life.Remember: in our body, there are more of these bacteria than our own cells!We are a five -star hotel in bacteria.They are the ones who control our immune system 95%: if they are not there, you have the faulty immune system.In reality, we shelter a microbiota which is foreign to us but that makes us: there is a very sophisticated communication between this microbiota and our brain.We have noticed for example that, if the bacteria of our intestine are in bad shape, we are depressed.

So for you, what defines the human being ... is that he needs others?

Yes, man is a being of links.Basically, we are the link we weave.With our environment, other species, with ourselves.

"Man is an animal in the making"

Management: The brain is what man makes man?

Pierre-Marie Lledo (Researcher in Neuroscience, Director of Research at the CNRS and Director of Education at the Institut Pasteur): we are not human by our genes, our muscles, our intestines or our skeleton...Because we share the same with other animals.We are human by our brain.Because, even if there are circuits that we share with animals, our brain is a much more complex system.E especially because, when we look at how the human brain develops, we see that he is able to summarize in our first 25 years of existence the millions of years by which man has passed.Clearly, at birth, we are equipped with automatic circuits.Like those of the lizard.It is this system which makes for example that, when I go up the steps of a staircase, if I run out of steam, the partial oxygen pressure decreases and my brain will therefore launch a command to better ventilate.Then, during our development, the systems called limbic will arrive, which correspond to the emotional and emotional sphere and everything related to the other.And this is what allows us, with others, to acquire during life the skills and knowledge that we do not have at birth.

As with genetics then, you say that our brain is delivered "virgin" and that it is our environment that does what we are?

Exactly: at birth it's a bit like we were a superb computer but without software.The characteristic of the human being is that he is an animal in the making: he can develop talents, skills during his life.He will cultivate his brain, develop it through others.Having companions, being part of a collective will allow him to develop.

So we are nothing without the others?

When we are born, we are not finished, so we are vulnerable.A foal, twenty minutes after having come to the world, is able to follow the horde, his brain is built and he can get out of it alone.For humans, this is not the case.To survive, we therefore had to find a counter-fire: invent a social brain.This is why our brain endors us with the ability to slip into the skin of the other, what is called compassion, empathy.This is what allows social and cultural transmission.When I don't know, I rely on the brain of others.The human brain is an echo chamber of the other's brain.That's the social brain.

It is often said that our brain works "at the reward", that we are looking for above all the pleasure.Is that the quest for meaning: to please your brain?

Human is a thinking animal and above all wishing.Desire is the mental simulation of the upcoming award.This is one of the specifics of the human, that we do not find in any other animal species: his ability to simulate a desirable future.And this desirable future, in essence, it is collective and I share it.

"Man is a complex machine whose functioning is still unknown"

Is man a machine like any other?

Laurence Devillers (professor in artificial intelligence at the Sorbonne and Paris-Saclay, specialist in human/machine interactions, member of the National Committee of Digital Ethics and associate researcher at the Obvia (International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of theIA and digital): if man is a machine, I tell myself that it is an extremely complex machine whose functioning is still unknown.Because thought is not reduced to the functioning of the brain.The basic idea of AI, in the 1950s, is to reproduce human -specific cognitive capacities, thanks to machines.And we have, in fact, succeeded in acquiring incredible skills by breaking today amounts of Gigantism data.But we are not able to make human intelligence: machines only simulate what we are.A robot will be able to have an appearance of conversation with you, if it is well programmed, but that is only a simulation.Today, we build machines that imitate man, but without feeling anything, they can listen and speak, but without understanding any of the words, and reason without any conscience, without thought.These systems that speak to us, they are in no way responsible for what they say because they do not master any reasoning.It is just a mechanical construction, increasingly elaborated, due to an algorithm.

What still differentiates the human from the machine?

Machines have no intention, emotion, feeling.They have no pleasure or desire.They do not have this appetite to live, there is nothing living, no viscera, no microbiota ... Our body is also what makes us vulnerable.This vulnerability has deployed incredible resources to humans to constantly adapt and survive.This is what pushes him to get information outside, to learn in contact with others, in interaction.A baby, to learn, he touches, he feels, he interacts with others.And he learns a lot very quickly from a few interactions ultimately.What is the machine doing?It ingests gigantic databases, its learning is completely encyclopedic.She is totally devoid of common sense, innate, history ...

You do not believe in "augmented man", more intelligent, stronger, more resistant, thanks to machines?

We hear more and more transhumanist discourse, which seek to show that ultimately humans could be increased, in particular by being “copied” on a machine.That he would be more effective because he would no longer have the vicissitudes of his body.We are going to become smarter, less deadly, we will repair ourselves in envy ... But for me, in reality, it would not be an improvement but an impoverishment.

Why ?

Because the machines, by their very functioning, are based on what already exists, offer standardized responses and are incapable of relational.Now we need contact between humans, not just virtual.We need emotions, sensations, to build together, socially, for collective well-being, a shared ideal.Machines can facilitate certain interactions, but they cannot replace them.This is also why it is necessary to regulate, to think about ethics to know where the place of the human and where is that of the machine, in a world which is less and less real.

"Being human is to ask the question of meaning"

Management: How can a philosopher answer question "What is a human being"?

Flora Bernard (philosopher, founder of the Thae agency): I believe that the answer is not to go and seek on the side of what characterizes the human being, but rather of what motivates him.What is his fundamental motivation?Some philosophers tell us, for example, that what motivates human beings is power, power.Freud told us that what motivates human beings is the search for pleasure.Finally, Victor Frankl, a contemporary of Freud, tells us that no, in reality, it is neither pleasure nor power, it is the quest for meaning.The human being who looks at the stars and wonders why he is there, this is what distinguishes the human human: his ability to ask the question of meaning.

Why this quest for meaning?Because our presence does not make sense?

It is true that we are thrown there, we did not ask to be there, to be alive, so it's up to us to give meaning to this life.The human being is a being in the making: "existence precedes the essence", tells us Sartre.There is no human essence, it is created, it is built, in particular by its actions.This is undoubtedly what also distinguishes humans: his freedom to think, to give meaning to what he lives.

And where does he find meaning?

There are three sources of meaning: the first is the ability to create new, to be initiated by, to be able to say "I", to be subject in an action.The second is the ability to be in touch, in relation, with others but also with greater than oneself.This is why, when we look at the stars, there is this idea of transcendence, of something that goes beyond us, of greater than us, to which the human being likes to connect.And the third source of meaning is to be able to modify your attitude.We have this power and this is where our fundamental freedom is found.

What distinguishes human thought from a machine's reasoning?

It's ethics.Humans are able to question themselves, to wonder constantly if what they do is good or not.To relate to values that will guide him.Besides, we are able to assert our values even when there is displeasure, loss of power.The human being is able to give up something that would make him happy, because something greater aspire.And this thing is the meaning.

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